A protester has been charged with violating a city's obscene language ordinance for protesting with a sign reading, "This war is Bullshit..."

Rich Lesbian

Rich snobby Lesbian from Cali, her journal, her tales.
Forty-one-year-old Mike Wallschlaeger has been standing outside the Marathon County, Wisconsin Courthouse every Friday for about two years with a sign that reads, "this war is Bushit." But this week, the Wausau Police Department decided to cite Wallschlaeger for violating the city's ordinance against "obscene" language.

Such an ordinance is highly unlikely to survive Constitutional muster. See for example Cohen vs California in which the Supreme Court held that a man who wore a jacket with the phrase "F-ck the Draft" was protected by the First Amendment, saying "[a]bsent a more particularized and compelling reason for its actions, the State may not, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, make the simple public display of this single four-letter expletive a criminal offense." If a well-known expletive cannot arbitrarily be prohibited, it seems highly improbable that a made-up word could be.

Wallschlaeger refused to take down the sign, pointing out that the word "Bushit" isn't even a real word, but police cited him anyway, taking his sign as evidence.

According to a poster on DemocraticUnderground.com, the police received one complaint ( heckler's veto?) from an older man who drove by and said it upset his grand-daughter, who curiously enough was not in the car with him at the time.

This sort of nonsense has got to be stopped. If police are already citing and harassing peaceful protesters for using words that don't even exist, is it that far of a stretch for them to assert that any of a variety of speech critical of the President is "obscene" language? Clearly this law is selectively and arbitrarily applied (we haven't heard of the local newspaper being cited for printing the word "Bushit" in their article, for example) and even if Wallschlaeger is ultimately vindicated in court, the illegal police interference with his right to protest will exact a significant toll upon his life: there will be paperwork to file, court appearances to make, attornies to consult, etc., all at no inconsiderable expense of time and money for him.

I hope Mr. Wallschlaeger does win a court battle and is eventually awarded with significant punitive damages and full recovery of his attorney fees and whatever income he loses fighting this unconstitutional citation.

-------Nick